Render Farm – An Overview

2014-12-24 16:20:16

RAYVISION Lectures

Render Farm

What is a Render Farm?

The term render farm may be a cause for confusion for many, which is why at first; we will simply attempt to explain what a render farm is. Essentially, a render farm is a cluster of computers which are used to provide CGI (computer generated imagery) through a batch processing method.
The visual effects we see in movies that look so mesmerizingly unbelievable? Yes, render farms facilitate their creation. Render farms assist organizations and companies in having access to 3D graphics and animation graphics. Through their clusters, they make the integration of images available and streamline the whole process for CG artists.
Typically, large farms use a queue manager which facilitates the rendering of high quality images by distributing the rendering processes to different processors.

Some Advantages

The computer cluster (high performance system of computers) renders CGIs mostly for television, film and animation. The rendering of complex and high quality images requires higher computing power. Render farms provide this computing power to render computer generated imagery. The reason render farms are preferred is because they are able to generate high quality imagery in reasonable amounts of time, because of their computing power.

A Few Things to Look For

A reliable render farm service should provide a free trial. The reason for this is that when it comes to visual effects, the stakes are quite high and rendering services tend to be a long term commitment. Thus, it is justified, in fact; advisable for you to seek a free trial to assess the quality of the services provided.
Another important factor is that the support services should be excellent and available at any time. This ensures that the results achieved are aligned with your expectations. The entire rendering process can take time, and the customer support team should be efficient and helpful until the completion of the project, and respond effectively to any problems or inquiries. Since a certain level of quality is accepted from the visual effects, the imagery needs to be precise and in case a potential problem surfaces in the process, the support team should be friendly and approachable.
Finally, you should also assess the security measures of the render farm before entering into a contract with them. It’s always good to ask for the security measures employed by the provider, to ensure that the system is safe.